JOE HERMITT, The Patriot-NewsPenn State defensive line coach Larry Johnson could be a successor to Joe Paterno.

For a few weeks now, I've been getting the same question from beat reporters and columnists around the country and fans here at home, as if I know the answer: Well, it looks like this is it for Joe, right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know whether coach Joe Paterno will quit voluntarily after this season, but I doubt it. I don't know if hell become rejuvenated in the offseason, if his legs could get marginally better and his pain could lessen after a few months off. Then, I suspect, he'll want one more year.

And I am the last guy ever to count out Paterno, as many times as I thought the pressures of losing early in the millennium might discourage him into quitting. I do know pain will not dissuade him, no matter how bad it looks to us. The man is relentless.

That said, if you want a best crystal-ball guess, this seems as good a time as any.

The seasons second half starts Saturday night. But, in more ways than one, this is when the entire season begins. What happens in the next seven games will determine the leverage Paterno retains in helping name his successor, be it this winter or next.

The tipping point, I believe, is an 11-2 finish.

That or better and Paterno can offer his resignation, either in January or after one more year, in exchange for a say in getting someone on his current staff hired as his successor.

If it's 10-3 or anything less, he either relinquishes some clout or loses it altogether. Then PSU President Graham Spanier effectively will retain carte blanche to do whatever he chooses. And dismissing Paterno and making an outside hire that could purge the entire current staff is then in play.

Here's an outline of the way I see a possible regime change, based on recent correspondence with key people within the program:

Defensive line coach Larry Johnson is a much bigger player than you might imagine. If this ends up an inside hire, a more likely scenario, I'd put at least even money on him as the next coach. I might even give him better odds than defensive coordinator Tom Bradley.

Right or not, Bradley probably will suffer from having been the heir apparent so long at a place where those closest to Paterno have not wanted to contemplate his successor. Certain people in Paterno's inner sanctum are under the mistaken impression that Bradley has attempted surreptitiously to promote himself as the next head coach.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. He's unfailingly modest, self-deprecating and deferential to Paterno in public and private. I suppose the erroneous perception was sown when Bradley brought the team through the Beaver Stadium tunnel before the 2006 Temple game, the one after Paterno's left knee injury at Wisconsin. It happened because Bradley was the guy the team looked up to then and still does now.

Unfortunately for Bradley, the players will have little to do with his future position. Bradley is not cut from the corporate cloth desired by most blue-blooded Penn State donor types. What you see is what you get -- a hard-working, bachelor football coach from Johnstown, married to his job, who refuses to put on airs or varnish himself.

In a perfect world, Bradley wouldn't have to.

Johnson doesn't have to. He's naturally even in demeanor and quiet and dignified in manner with the sort of navy-suit patina that can present the program at money functions. If Bradley is a VFW banquet room kind of guy, Johnson is more suited to Nittany Lion Club and alumni dinners. Thats where the big money flows.

As a coach, Johnson has recruited and taught his butt off the past few years. No single unit has performed as consistently as PSU's defensive line.

He has a famous NFL running back for a son, twins who both were PSU athletes and a wife, Christine, who is said to be as good a recruiting closer as he is.

Finally, he's black. At a place so laughably straitlaced and politically correct as PSU, I'm sure his ethnicity seems exotic to the Wonder Bread chieftains. Johnson knows how to present himself in that CEO way that impresses them. It would be awfully tough for Spanier and the Board of Trustees to reject a loyal, qualified African-American.

Then again, many of the players who've been in hot water with the law recently have been Johnson's recruits. But so far none of the serious charges against any of them has stuck. If it stays that way in the future, Johnson won't be affected.

Quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno? Let's please put this one to rest.

Jay doesn't want to follow his father. Joe doesn't want Jay to follow him. This is not going to happen.

As for the possible outside hires, following a legend is not the most attractive job prospect, either. Any of those with the ego to try it will demand more money than I think Spanier is willing to shell out.

And one in particular who possessed the ego has shrunk about three hat sizes lately.

What a difference two years have made at Rutgers, huh? Former Penn State assistant Greg Schiano, at one time the boy wonder of north Jersey, has seen his Scarlet Knights spiral to 1-4 and his program's spending tailed by a new deputy athletic director.

Not long ago, Schiano brimmed with testosterone, snapped off his consonants like Teddy Roosevelt and pierced questioners with dagger eyes. After a succession of butt-kickings, RU watchers say he's suddenly disconsolate, quiet and profoundly humbled.

Who knows, if he can pull his team out of the nose dive, that might help him in the long run -- if there is a long run for the PSU job.

That leaves Temple head coach Al Golden as the prime outsider. A tempting choice for Spanier, although maybe not for Paterno. Golden was a serious candidate for the UCLA job, and his conservative yet dynamic vibe is perfect for PSU.

But Golden is still quite young at 38. And the former PSU assistant's exit interview upon taking the defensive coordinator job at Virginia in 2001 was, I've been told, brutally frank -- a little too honest for Paterno.

Finally, there's Penn States legendary frugality to consider.

Spanier, I've been constantly warned, wants to serve his own ego and make a splash with an outside hire. Only time will tell if this is true.

I would caution those who buy this line of logic for this reason: When the president fully realizes what the going rate really is for a primo head football coach and then realizes how unattractive following a legend is for most prospective coaches, he'll revert inside.

All that said, I could well be back writing this story this time next year. But, hey, you asked for it.

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